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Daleks Return to Dr Who

Posted by Zonk on from the killllll-the-doktoooooorrrr dept.

Jim Hall writes "An article on the BBC says that a Dalek will return to Dr Who, in an episode titled simply 'Dalek'. The Doctor discovers that a Dalek has been collected by an unsuspecting billionaire. Many of the perceived weaknesses of the Daleks have been addressed: Stairs have not been a problem for Daleks since 1988, when they first levitated towards Sylvester McCoy in Remembrance of the Daleks. The new Dalek can also spin its torso independently of his head, so creeping up from behind is no longer an option. Its trademark 'sink plunger' attachment also reveals a terrifying new function. 'Dalek' is on BBC-1 on Saturday, 30 April."

3 of 339 comments (clear)

  1. Radio interviews by RonnyJ · · Score: 4, Informative

    It's been known for a fair while about the return of the Daleks - Eccleston has said in radio interviews that they will appear in this next (the 6th) episode, and that they will also have a part to play elsewhere in the current series (although he has been somewhat vague on the details).

  2. Re:Scary things, these daleks. by fm6 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yeah, not the most convincing bad guys. But remember that before it became late-night PBS fare, Dr. Who was a kiddie show, and thus couldn't make its horrors too conspicuously horrible. The main selling point of the Daleks was not that they were scary, but that it was a lot of fun to march down the streek, one arm pointing directly in front of you, and screaming in a high-pitched voice, "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"

  3. Re:What I wonder is... by Zey · · Score: 5, Informative
    Lets see...
    1. They're symbolic of the results of nuclear war (particularly terrifying in 1963 when they were introduced, just after the Cuban Missile Crisis proved how close nuclear war could have been).
    2. General fear of the unknown; what mutant lurks inside the Dalek travel machine. It took a few stories before they were shown. Even then, they're generally only seen briefly.
    3. Fears of biological and genetic engineering, classic Frankenstein losing control of a creation story.
    4. Stories involving Davros also add the fear of fascism, the seductiveness of evil and warns of the dangers of logic and self-preservation over ethics and humanity.
    5. The 'next generation' seen in Revelation of the Daleks added the question: what if you went to sleep and woke up with only your head and turning into a Dalek hybrid?
    Unfortunately, not a lot of that was seen in the Tom Baker era, apart from Genesis... just a lot of Tom causing them to get confused and explode by dropping a hat on their eye-stalk, or yell "Exterminate!" a lot, which really cheapened them as villains.